The Truth He Buried With Her Chapter 11

The Truth He Buried With Her Chapter 11

I put the divorce settlement on his desk.

“You’re his CO. I know a military divorce has to go through you. So sit down. Mediate. I’ll talk. He listens.”

Colonel Harrington looked at the settlement, then at me, and told me to wait in the small conference room

next door.

Ten minutes later, Griffin came in.

He was in uniform, clean-shaven.

He sat across from me, hands folded on the table. His eyes were even more bloodshot when he looked at

Colonel Harrington cleared his throat. “All right. Let’s get to it.”

He turned to me. “Are you sure about this?”

“I’m sure.”

“You have a son. He’s not even five. Have you thought about him?”

“That’s exactly why I’m here.”

I set the pen beside the settlement.

“Two months ago, my son asked me whose baby that woman had in her stomach. He’s four years old. A four-year-old shouldn’t have to ask a question like that.”

“He watched his father kneel in the gravel. He watched his mother get cornered at the door and screamed at. He watched me sneak out in the middle of the night with him in my arms.”

“Colonel Harrington, is that the environment you’d want a kid growing up in?”

Colonel Harrington said nothing.

Griffin finally spoke. His voice came out rough, barely above a whisper.

“Sloane, can we at least not separate? I’ll move out and stay in the office. You stay in the house. You can go to work if you want. I won’t bother you. Whenever your anger fades…”

“Until my anger fades?”

I cut him off.

“Griffin, do you think I’m divorcing you because I’m angry? You think once the anger passes, I’ll come back?”

“Let me ask you something. Two months ago, behind the washhouse, I asked you to tell me. You said, ‘Just give me a little more time.’ It’s been two months. What did that time buy me?”

“Rita blocking my door? Eleanor calling me out in front of the whole room?”

Griffin didn’t answer.

His hands on the table curled into fists, knuckles white.

“I’ll tell you why I have to go through with this. Because from beginning to end, you never treated me as someone standing with you.”

“When you carried this thing, the only person you never thought about was me.”

His eyes reddened.

He unclenched his fists and laid his palms flat on the table, staring at his own calluses.

After a long time, he said, “I’ll sign.”

Colonel Harrington looked at the two of us and said the courthouse opened next Tuesday. We should go

together.

He’d help process the paperwork.

When it ended, I stood first and walked out.

Griffin stayed in his seat. As I reached the door, he called my name.

“Sloane.”

I stopped but didn’t turn.

“You’re right. I never treated you as someone on my side. I’m sorry.”

“Too late.”

I pushed the door open and walked out.

The day of the divorce was sunny.

I arrived first, then Griffin.

In line ahead of us, a young couple was registering.

The girl wore a red dress. The boy had new leather shoes. They laughed several times in front of the window.

When our turn came, the clerk at the family court counter handed me a stack of forms-the Petition for

Dissolution of Marriage.

I filled out my portion, then passed it to Griffin. He looked at it, signed, and slid it back.

Under “Grounds for Dissolution,” I had written: Irreconcilable differences.

The clerk stamped the filing and gave us a case number. “You’ll get the final decree in about six weeks,” she

said.

We walked out of the courthouse. The sun was bright, and the shadows of sycamore leaves lay broken on

the ground.

Griffin called from behind. I turned to look at him standing on the top step.

“Where will you live from now on?”

“The textile mill assigned me a dormitory. Two rooms, a balcony.”

He nodded, his lips moving, then pressing shut.

In the end, he only said four words.

“If you need anything, call me.”

I looked at his face, thinner now, the hollows below his cheekbones sunken.

“Griffin, if you take anything from this, let it be this. What you owe me isn’t an apology. It’s the fact that you never once treated me like your partner.”

“I know.”

“Goodbye.”

I turned and walked away with Leo.